The big picture

We’ve wrapped up the fourth week of the 2026 legislative session here at the Capitol. We continued working through bills in committee, but folks were also talking about money and an education funding package proposed by Senate Republicans. I have a lot of concerns about this proposal, and I’m hearing more from people in the district and around the state who are also voicing their own concerns.

Here’s the issue – this package would be paid for by funds that are currently being used to boost our state’s Teachers’ Retirement System. When the system was not financially healthy, the Legislature began earmarking money to strengthen the system, and that was in addition to the contributions by teachers, employees, and school districts. But the Republicans announced this last week they would pay for their education package by redirecting $254 million dollars a year that had been earmarked for the pension system to pay for their proposals. Senate Democrats have been advocating for greater investments in our public schools that focus on longterm reforms, but we’re very concerned about how this proposal could impact the retirement income of Oklahoma’s retired educators. I do support much of their package, including teacher pay raises, literacy coaches and improved math tutoring, but do not support their plan for how to pay for it.

Here are my concerns.

First of all, our retirees are struggling – they haven’t gotten a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in a long time. Promises made to them have not been fulfilled because of the impact of inflation, and they’ve only received one increase in more than a decade. But there’s another issue. The Republican proposal also includes putting another $25 million in public dollars into the private school vouchers, bringing that tax giveaway to $275 million a year. We know the vast majority of these funds are going to wealthy families, many earning over $250,000 a year, who already had their kids in private school anyway. It’s also important to point out that we don’t receive any reporting from those private schools on outcomes to show us these funds are making a difference for their students.

Public funds belong in public schools, with strong accountability. I cannot support a package that includes voucher increases, and I definitely am concerned about anything that undercuts our retired teachers.

Budget transparency is also missing from this package. In the past few years, the majority party put in place initiatives for public transparency that are not happening this year. We’ve had increased transparency so we could have open conversations in our committees about our decisions being made throughout the appropriations process.

Through transparency people get to see and weigh in on what priorities legislators are building into the budget, but I’m afraid we’ve gone back to a time when those decisions were being made behind closed doors.

Further, our colleagues keep talking about the fact that this is a tough budget year, but it’s a situation they created. Over the past few years, they’ve cut $1.6 billion dollars of taxes, and the vast majority of those cuts have benefited wealthy people and corporations, while too many working Oklahomans are suffering.

It means we don’t have the flexibility to make decisions needed for our state.

Suddenly, we’re hit with inflation, federal budget cuts, decreasing availability in health and mental health care, unmet needs in education, public safety, and we don’t have the money to address it. Yes, we have emergency savings, but that isn’t available year in and year out.

Oklahomans are being left in the dark on these financial decisions. As taxpayers and citizens, you deserve openness and transparency, and we hope you’ll join us in advocating for that. If you have any questions or comments, contact me at 405-521-5636 or Julia.Kirt@oksenate.gov.

We are glad to hear from you. Onward!